A young boy climbs a cacao tree to pick a ripe pod for us!

On Saturday we met a cacao farmer down here in Soconusco, Chiapas, named Don Isidro.  He took us to meet his family and have dinner with them.  The day started by meeting him at a highway gas station.  Since we were late, he had been waiting at least an hour in the stifling heat. He was pretty  cool about it though, and invited us to come to his house and farm where he grew cacao.  First we went fishing! Don Isidro wanted to feed us fresh fish, so he took us to a talapia farm where a teenage boy dragged nets across a pond to scoop out fish.  Once we had the fish(it took over an hour to find the boy and to get the right sized fish), we drove to his farm which was located at the very end of a dirt road that led through cacao and mango trees.   Don Isidro grows both of those as well as coffee, which he told us, is his most profitable crop.

He showed us his cacao, which wasn’t ready to harvest yet.  The peak harvest season in Chiapas is June where the pods turn bright yellow and are ready to be cut from the tree.   The pods we saw were still green, although when we tasted them fresh, they were already sweet and delicious.

He then invited us into his house to meet his wife, Herminia and his six children.  It was hard to keep track of all the kids because four of them are girls and seemingly close in age.  Darius made an interesting observation.  He said that if you have 6 kids back home, they make a TV show about it, but here it’s quite normal.  I explained that farmers generally have more kids so they can help around the farm.

Yesterday was the last day at the shop, and I wasn’t even there to say goodbye!  I wish I could have been around over the last few weeks to talk to all of you who have come in to  Kerstin’s Chocolates. I want to first of all thank you for your continued patronage even in my absence.

As some of you already know,   my family and I made the decision to move to Germany this September during our current trip around the world. This is why I decided to close the shop. In the last 6 months I discovered that it is difficult to manage a business virtually. My favorite part of my job was meeting people face to face to share my passion for chocolate.  I want to thank my sister Angie and my staff, Rebecca, Rachel, Marrianne, and Maite, for their hard work and commitment while I was away.  They did a great job.

The last 4 years have been a steep learning curve and difficult at times. It’s been you, the customers who have helped me grow and learn. Thank you for supporting the shop and putting up with the growing pains! I will miss you all very much.

I’m sure many of you are wondering where you will get your chocolate fix now. Luckily there are other good chocolate shops in the city. I am also hoping to devise a way for you to still buy some of your favorites in Edmonton. Stay posted about that. Also, I want to reiterate that I am not gone forever and I will be back some day. I promise!

In our travels, we have seen chocolate makers, chocolatiers, chocolate enthusiasts and cocoa plantations. The more I follow the path of chocolate, the more I love it. I miss working with it, teaching about it and eating it (despite being in surrounded by cacao, the quality of the local chocolates can be sketchy). We are planning to visit more plantations and factories in the upcoming months and it will only increase my knowledge of chocolate. I hope to translate this knowledge into a better product. I’m excited to discover what my chocolate future holds, and I would love it if you will be there to enjoy the discoveries.

Yours,

Kerstin

We’ve still got a good range of Chocophilia bars in stock, including Fleur de Sel, Lemon Dream, Hot, Hazelnut, Pumpkin Pie, Venezuela and Omega Lime. Bars are on sale for $3.5 each, $19.5 for six and $37.5 for twelve.

The Caviar shelf is empty, but we’ve made sure the Spiced and Dark Drinking Chocolate shelves are full so you can enjoy iced drinking chocolate all summer… and maybe even save a little for next winter. Maybe. Drinking chocolate tins are on sale for $14 each (Reg. $18.95).

Michel Cluizel‘s line of single origin milk and dark chocolate bars have always been great additions to our chocolate tasting workshops, and you can now pick up any of his bars for $6 (Reg. $9.5).

Finally, for those of you that love to cook and bake (or snack), we’ve still got Valrhona’s Jivara, Manjari and Araguani in stock (250g – $7.5; 500g – $14), plus small and large bags of Felchlin’s Bolivian Cru Sauvage (68%) and Dominican Cru Hacienda (74%).

Hope to see some of you this weekend!

**Many of you have been asking what the staff will be doing post April 14th. Rachel is off to Europe for three months and is moving on to great things in the fall, while I’ll be working in Edmonton’s food scene for the foreseeable future. Maite, who you would have run into on Fridays, is heading off to pastry school this fall. And finally, our long time chocolatier, Becca Grant, is in the midst of launching her very own custom confection company, Violet May Designs, which will be up and running in a couple weeks. She’s ready with cakes, truffles and other chocolate creations for weddings and other events.

Luis Robledo,  owner and chocolatier extraordinaire was there to greet us as we stumbled into his shop.  Cool, mellow and self-effacing, he instantly made us feel welcome and at ease (Darius later pointed out that Luis shares these characteristics with many other chocolatiers we’ve met).  He seemed genuinely surprised that we made the trek to visit his shop after reading an article about him which counted him as one of the 10 best chocolatiers in North America.  In appreciation he gave us a plate of his favorite chocolates to try.

We, of course,  ravaged them, fighting over the ones that peaked our curiosity such as the lime caramel and the white peach and apricot(the one for which he was now famous).  They were all amazing.  The lime caramel blew me away with its intensity.  The spiced caramel was rich and complex and so was the single origin ganache made with 100% Mexican chocolate.  It was exciting to taste these bold flavors and meltingly smooth ganaches and centers.  His execution was nearly perfect every time.  This is not by accident; Luis Robledo has an impressive CV.  He has worked with Daniel Boulud, Francois Payard and Canada’s own Thomas Haas in New York. He also counts Le Circque and the Four Season’s New York as his past employers.  Little did we know, but we watched him compete for Mexico at the World Chocolate Masters at the Salon du Chocolat in October!

[See the photos that we took of him in Paris at the end of this post.]

Since I was fresh out of chocolate, I needed to stock up for the next little while.  I bought a large box of chocolates (the largest), a couple of bars (he uses Valrhona) and some fruit and nut bark (which ended up being one of my favorites).

These items brought us great pleasure over the next few days in Mexico City.  I might even go so far as to say I had a revelation about chocolate while tasting his spiced caramel bon bon.  But more on that in the next posting…

[Mini Gallery of Photos from the World Chocolate Masters at the 2011 Salon du Chocolat in Paris]

The first thing we did when we got to Mexico City was go for churros and hot chocolate. Mexico City is crowded and hectic and I couldn’t face it without some ammunition.

El Moro is an old school Churreria that’s been around since 1934. The atmosphere is no nonsense cafeteria style with good cheap eats. The restaurant is large, with at least 50 tables that were all full when we got there at four in the afternoon.

We found a table and ordered off a board that gave us four choices of hot chocolate, each accompanied by 4 churros. The choices were, Especial(bitter with cinnamon), Frances(vanilla), Espanol(sweet and thick), Mexicano(with water and vanilla). Since there were four of us, we ordered all of them. They came fairly quickly with a family sized plate piled high with churros. I tried the hot chocolates first and they were all yummy, although the Spanish one was a bit too sweet. The “especial” was my favorite, which was good for me since it was the one I had ordered. The real winner, however, were the churros. Freshly made and piping hot, they were sweet and crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. The sweetness of the hot chocolate was perfectly balanced by the not too sweet churros center. It was a heavenly combination that fortified me to venture out amongst the masses.

Closing Sale

Beginning Tuesday, March 13th, we will be discounting items throughout the shop by 15-40%. Stop by the shop to find out what’s on sale and  follow us on Twitter and Facebook for daily specials. Our final day at the shop will be Saturday, April 14th. *Please note that discounts do not apply to Easter items.*

Thanks to your support and great love of chocolate, we’ve been able to provide great chocolate to Edmontonians for the past four years now. So, it’s time to celebrate!

We hope you will join us on Saturday, February 25th from 6-9pm for bubbly, homemade marshmallows and fabulous chocolate prizes. Everything in the shop will be 15% off throughout the day and evening, so be sure to pick up your favourites or maybe even that special bar you’ve been eyeing.

Once again, we would like to thank you for all your support during the past four years. We couldn’t have done it without you, Edmonton. See you Saturday!

If you need some ideas, be sure to ask Rachel or I when you swing by. We can set you up with everything from confections to bark bouquets to the bars you’ll need to host your own romantic chocolate tasting session. See you soon!

I slowly made my way to the Isetan department store in Shinjuku, which has been hosting the salon for the last 10 years. I was excited to walk around a bit by myself, without kids, and husband and luggage and I breathed in the atmosphere of one of the busiest and brightest districts of Tokyo. When I couldn’t control my curiosity anymore, I took the elevator up to the 6th floor of Isetan and stepped into the overheated and crowded exhibition hall.

The first thing I noticed that was different from the Paris salon was the lack of space; every booth was crammed next to the other. The second thing I noticed was the lack of samples! That was one of the best things about the Paris salon. The third thing I noticed, which may be tied to the second thing, was that the prices were outrageously high. The average price for a assorted box of about 10 chocolates was a whopping $50!!!! That’s $5.00 per chocolate. The prices scared me so much that I bought only a few gifts for friends, and nothing for myself(ok maybe a couple of things).

I took great interest in watching the buying habits of the Japanese and what they were interested in. The Japanese are very savvy about food and they know and love chocolate. Many MOF’s(meilleur ouvrier de France) were present at the salon and people were gobbling it up. Most chocolatiers were French but brands from Switzerland, the U.K and the U.S. were also present. Popular items included chocolate bark in various flavors, cute, animal shaped chocolates, and beautiful hand-decorated chocolates in extravagant boxes. The Japanese are really conscious about presentation and aesthetics, so packaging is as important as the product itself. One could say the chocolate here is over packaged, they are often wrapped individually or presented in such a way that they don’t touch each other. I guess if you are paying $5.00 per chocolate you want them to be spotless when you pop them in your mouth.

I decided to escape the mob and take a hot chocolate break at Jean Paul Hevin cafe. I chose the yuzu(a type of Japanese citrus fruit) hot chocolate for $12.00. It was rich, hot and not too sweet. The yuzu was concentrated on top so you would get a whiff of it’s aroma as you drank it but it didn’t overpower the drink. I was happy to be in the land of chocolate again. If the Tokyo Salon was a bit disappointing, my cup of hot chocolate was decidedly not.